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Costumed students raise $670

Fort Morgan High School International Club organized 2013 event

By Jenni Grubbs

Times Staff Writer

Posted:
11/04/2013 10:59:04 AM MST

Click photo to enlarge

Around 50 costumed high school and middle school students gather Sunday in Barb Keenan's living room to hear about how Trick or Treat for U.N.I.C.E.F. works. The students would spend a few hours walking around Fort Morgan neighborhoods seeking change for the charity.

Instead, the costumed figures were students from Fort Morgan High School and Fort Morgan Middle School seeking spare change for a good cause: UNICEF.

Money raised by the United Nations Children's Fund, more commonly known as UNICEF, during trick-or-treating goes to emergency assistance programs worldwide.

Those can be for providing healthier food, access to health care, clean water, educational opportunities and lots more to children around the globe.

"Sadly to say, there has never not been an emergency in this world," Keenan told the more than 50 students and handful of adults sitting around her, listening to a bit of history about the event and the plan for how it would work.

This Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF group was organized by FMHS's International Club, of which Keenan is a leader.

"This is the biggest gathering we've had in a while, and it's marvelous," Keenan said.

Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF began in 1947, she told the costumed crowd, with children and teens who were too old to trick-or-treat for candy instead seeking money "for thousands of displaced orphans after World War II."

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Since then, it has occurred annually on the Sunday before Halloween, with people of all ages dressing up in costumes of all kinds and carrying small, orange, cardboard boxes around, ringing doorbells and saying "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF."

"The goal is to collect money," Keenan said. "It's not a political thing."

She noted that UNICEF helps kids in at least 190 countries, including in the United States, which was a beneficiary of raised funds after Hurricane Katrina displaced so many families.

Keenan explained that UNICEF's motto was "kids helping kids," and Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF was a good way to do that.

"This helps kids," she said. "And we have fun doing good."

The stories the kids would be able to tell afterward were another part of the fun, Keenan said.

She told of one group of high school athletes whose costumes had consisted of their FMHS letter jackets who rang a doorbell only to have a woman dressed only in plastic wrap and a bow answer the door and say, "Happy birthday."

"She was somebody's birthday present, but not theirs," Keenan said, smiling as the kids around her laughed and blushed. "You never know what's going to happen."

Among the adults helping with Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF were Leandra and Chris Marymee from the youth group at United Methodist Church in Fort Morgan.

Leandra was dressed as an elf and helped Keenan get things going and then drove some of the costumed kids to the southwest part of Fort Morgan for trick-or-treating.

"We love Halloween, and we wanted to help UNICEF," she said. "We love what they're doing and we wanted to get the youth group involved."

Keenan sounded excited that there were other groups participating beyond the International Club and that there were so many ages involved this year.

Among those trick-or-treating, she said, was a "core group of seniors" who had started out as freshman. And Keenan noted that there were a lot of freshmen there, as well, and she hoped they would keep doing the trick-or-treating through all four years of high school.

"I just think there is nothing better than to see kids doing good and having fun," she said. "It's the neatest thing in the world. What gives you self-esteem better than doing something for someone else?"

And of course afterward they all returned to Keenan's house to turn in the money, share stories and pig out.

Money-wise, they brought in about $670 in change and bills, 425 pesos and two RTD tokens, according to Keenan, who called it a "most successful" year.

"The kids had all sorts of stories," Keenan said. "The hardest were the rude and sometimes profane people, but they had funny stories, also."

She said it sounded like the kids had had "a marvelous time" and really earned the popcorn balls, apples, candy, brownies, cookies, punch and apple juice waiting for them.

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